Do What You Have To Do
by Rydia Highwind
Summary: Cloud remembers Zack the night before the final battle with Sephiroth. Songfic to Sarah McLachlan's song of the same title.


Author: Rydia Highwind ( chichiri_is_hot@hotmail.com )  
Title: Do What You Have To Do  
Summary: Cloud remembers Zack the night before the final battle with Sephiroth. Songfic.  
Warnings: Angst, possible yaoi, stream of consciousness  
Disclaimer: The FFVII characters and world and stuff all belongs to Square. The song is called "Do What You Have To Do", by Sarah McLachlan. The first person random babbling idea came from Thorne.  
  
**Do What You Have To Do**  
by Rydia Highwind  
  
You're gone now, right? That wasn't just my imagination, right? Another dream? Another story I forged into my reality? I don't think there was ever this much detail in my mind, not even when _he_ was there. I don't remember what it felt like when I scored your sword through his side; I know what it must have felt like, but I don't remember it then. I can't even really remember Tifa's blood on my hands as I carried her to the side like she made me promise all those years back.  
  
I do remember the steel blade slicing through flesh and muscle and I do remember the blood, so much blood, spilling everywhere. It was on my hands and my stomach and my face and god, it was everywhere. I remember what you said to me then too, it was why I didn't die then, I guess. You should have seen him there, still bleeding, limping, carrying that...that thing's head and grinning like a madman--he was mad, wasn't he?--and just holding his sword there, through my stomach. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move, it was like I was frozen there. But then I remembered what you said, and...well, after that is when it gets fuzzy again.  
  
_what ravages of spirit conjured this temptuous rage_  
  
There was nothing fuzzy about you leaving, though. I can still taste the dirt in my mouth. The dirt, and later there was blood too, and I kept waiting and waiting and waiting for them to come back and to shoot me too but they never did. They didn't want me. Not even then, you know that? They never gave me what I wanted. I never did anything to deserve to get what I wanted anyway, not even then. I wanted them to kill me but they wouldn't because I hadn't done anything wrong. It was just you, you were the one that escaped, it wasn't my fault. They couldn't kill me too.  
  
_created you a monster broken by the rules of love_  
  
That's the part that stays in my dreams, and maybe that's why it's so clear to me. I don't dream about him, because he wasn't you. You were always a part of me, even from the very beginning. It'd make sense that I'd dream about you. I see you all the time, and it's always the same. The blood and the dirt, the boots and the waiting, and the rain. There's always rain. I don't know how much is real and how much is my imagination, but I think the rain must have been real because it hasn't changed since I remembered. There's always rain and I can feel it and I want it to rain more because there's smoke in the air and I hate that smell.  
  
And when I get up, there's blood and blood and blood until I want to throw up because that's what I tasted in my throat, the bitter, metallic taste that I never really understood until then what it was. There was blood in my mouth when I waited for them to kill me and then when I got up and you were there and god, there was blood in my mouth and on my hands and everywhere and it was just like before except now, I'm not so strong and it doesn't get fuzzy and faded in my mind. It's all there, it's real like that metallic tang in the back of my throat. This time I wasn't dying and I didn't need you to save me again--that's what Hojo said, you remember? He said that I would have bled to death before he got there if it hadn't been for you. It was just the same only this time, I was supposed to save you and I screwed up.  
  
_and fate has lead you through it  
you do what you have to do_  
  
I guess it makes sense that I dream about the night I lost you. It's the night that I failed you the most, more than when I failed that SOLDIER exam or when I messed up in combat practice and the drill instructor beat the crap out of me for hurting that other kid. Remember that? You were so mad and I wouldn't let you go and do the same to him because it was my own fault anyway. He got demoted later on and you never admitted that it was you who put in a bad word. But I know it was you, because you weren't surprised when I told you and you had that look in your eye that you always get when you do something you're not supposed to do.  
  
_and fate has lead you through it  
you do what you have to do_  
  
I don't dream about those times very much, but I don't need to. I know they're real, I don't know why I know, but I do. It's like there's something there inside me and outside me and assures me that it's real and that's okay, you know? Maybe someone else might think it's just nonsense and I really am insane, but I think it's real. I think you're real. I believe it. I have to because otherwise there is nothing. There's nothing else, not beyond you. There never really has been, I guess. I trusted you enough that I was able to believe that you'd never die because I knew you never would hurt me. It didn't ever matter that the average lifespan of a first class SOLDIER is twenty-two years old. It didn't ever matter because you were sixteen when I met you and I was fourteen then and when you're fourteen, twenty-two is decades away.  
  
It didn't really help when _he_ killed you and you didn't die. You were broken, broken more than I'd ever seen anywhere, in the pictures of the Wutai war in the textbooks and the infirmary when I had to do medical duty. You were broken and I didn't believe you'd ever be fixed. I was so angry. I hurt him, I hurt him for you. And then he came back and he was still alive and you...you knew it wasn't enough. So I kept going and he killed me too and I remember thinking it'd be okay then as I crawled back to you, it'd be okay because we'd still be together.  
  
_and I have the sense to recognize that  
I don't know how to let you go_  
  
It didn't really turn out okay, even if we were together. But I don't like to think about that. There's so much of that I don't remember, and from the reports we found, it's probably better that I don't. I don't remember and I don't want to either. I know you were real there too because the reports had our ID numbers on them and yours was listed. I know your ID number because I thought it was mine for a while at first. Hell, the only reason I knew my name wasn't Zack was because Tifa knew me and she said my name and she didn't say Zack.  
  
Sometimes I wonder what it was about you that made me want to be you so badly. And then I realize that it was everything. You were perfect, you probably still are. Everyone liked you and you were such a great fighter and everyone had to respect you because you were friends with _him_. I wanted to be just like you. When I came to Shinra, everything I hoped to accomplish while I was there was represented by you. I wanted to make first class in two years, like you did. I wanted to be friends with _him_, like you were. Instead...instead, I was just me. I couldn't even be you properly when I thought I was you.  
  
_every moment marked with apparitions of your soul_  
  
I don't know how I managed to forget you. Sometimes I think about it too long and I think I didn't really forget you, because I was you. I guess it was really me that I forgot. I remembered everything that you did in Shinra, I remember that you made first class in two years so I thought I did and I remembered that you were friends with _him_ and so I thought I was too. Because I was you, only...only Tifa said I was from Nibelheim and then I remembered some things about her and about us and about _him_. Sometimes I made things up to fill in the holes, and I didn't even mean to.  
  
_I'm ever swiftly moving, trying to escape this desire_  
  
I guess I'm pretty forgettable anyways. I was just a Shinra Regular, nothing special or important about me. Everyone who joined Shinra and didn't get killed was a regular at first and sometimes, if you were special or important, they'd do something about it so that everyone knew. Only the special candidates made it into SOLDIER and I guess it makes sense then that you did and I didn't. You always said I was special and it was just to you, but I guess that's all that really mattered anyway. You never minded that I wasn't the best because you wanted to help me get better. Besides, I couldn't be the best because....because he was the best and you knew that.  
  
I used to hate him, you know. I hated him and I loved him and everything all at once. He was perfection and he could do no wrong and god, I hated him for it. I think everyone sort of hated him when they realized that they'd never be good enough for him. But we all loved him too. Everyone came in wanting to be like the General and wanted to be noticed by him and then hating him and blaming him for our own imperfections. It was only the smart ones who realized that he was perfect but if he was then maybe they could be too and made it up high anyway. People like you.  
  
_the yearning to be near you  
I do what I have to do_  
  
Sometimes I think about what might have happened if I hadn't met you. I don't think about it for very long, because it's never anything good. I think you probably saved my life in more ways than you even know. I don't like to think of life without you, you've been a part of me for so long now. How long has it been? Seven years now, I guess. I was only fourteen when you found me and now I'm twenty-one. I guess twenty-two isn't so far off now, is it. I wonder if they counted you in their statistics, because you made it to twenty-three, after all.  
  
_the yearning to be near you  
I do what I have to do_  
  
I think I'm going to die tomorrow. I don't know if I'll see you in whatever comes next, I don't think I deserve to go to any place that you get in. But if I do die tomorrow, I'll look for you, okay? You wouldn't believe all the crazy shit that's gone on since you left. You wouldn't believe me if I told you. But _he_ came back and he's still as insane as he was five years ago. I hate seeing him like this because he was so much more and he always will be just because he's _him_. I hate a lot of things right now. You see, we're going down to kill him tomorrow because otherwise he'll kill everyone. I don't know if we will win or not, but I think I'm going to die, regardless of what happens.  
  
_and I have the sense to recognize that  
I don't know how to let you go_  
  
It doesn't bother me too much, really, not since I finally figured out who I am. Before that, I was afraid of death because a world without you didn't seem like much of anything and you were living inside of me. But now, you're not here so much anymore. You don't talk to me in my sleep anymore, not since I remembered everything. So it doesn't really matter much anymore, does it? I'll do what needs to be done and that'll be that. Maybe we'll even save the world and I'll be a hero.  
  
_a glowing ember, burning hot and burning slow_  
  
You'll be happy to know that no one knows that it's him behind this all. Everyone thinks he just disappeared five years ago and no one knows where or how or anything because that's Shinra for you, telling you only what they want you to think. So even if we do save the world, no one will hate him because no one will even associate him with the incident. It's not really him, anyway. That's what I keep telling myself, it's not really him. It hasn't been him since he went insane in that reactor, because if it was, I wouldn't be going down there tomorrow to kill him. I mean, who can kill perfection? Who can kill an angel?  
  
But since it's not really him, I don't have to worry about that. We're all his clones, you know? And it's just been a clone wandering all over the goddamned place and it's all been clones muttering about the reunion and Jenova and wow, can you hear his voice. It's not really him anymore. It wasn't even him in Nibelheim because I killed him there too. I'm already insane enough believing that it wasn't him, I don't think I'd be able to handle it if it really was.  
  
_deep within I'm shaken by the violence of existing for only you_  
  
So, yeah. We're going down there tomorrow and we're going to kill him and all that, and I'm going to put on your clothes and your armor tomorrow for one more day and pretend I am you just one more time and then...then maybe I can follow you. It's been a few months, almost a year since you left, and your sword still doesn't fit right in my grip. It's been that long and I still stumble over some of the simple things sometimes, the things that even a Shinra Regular could learn when he had someone else to teach him, standing behind him with his hands covered by the other person's. Even I could learn with a teacher like you. And I did, even if I still screw it up.  
  
I guess even if I do die tomorrow, we'll never really have what we did before. It doesn't seem like it's the same thing after you die and go into the Lifestream. You probably aren't even really you anymore. Maybe your soul got sucked up into one of those goddamned reactors. Maybe you turned into some materia, maybe even one of the ones I'm going to use tomorrow. That must be kind of strange, being trapped inside a little sphere, teaching people how to use magic. I guess it doesn't matter now, maybe Shinra stopped using Mako before they got to you. Maybe you were there when I got stuck in the Lifestream and made it all the way to Mideel.  
  
_I know I can't be with you  
I do what I have to do_  
  
I don't know. There are so many things I don't know. I hate it. There was nothing that I didn't know when you were with me. There was nothing I didn't know that I needed to know then, nothing I couldn't ask you and get some silly response for and would get nothing else until I punched you in the arm and you told me the truth. Nothing beyond our knowledge really mattered back then, so it was okay when sometimes we didn't know something. But now...the world is so much more complicated now, and there are so many answers that I don't have.  
  
_I know I can't be with you  
I do what I have to do_  
  
I guess I'll go to sleep now, and I'll probably see you in my dreams. That's the only time I see you anymore, and even if it's for that moment that I can taste the dirt and there's gunfire like the pitter patter or rain on a tin roof and I am screaming and crying your name with a voice that doesn't exist and there's blood and blood and blood and blood...I guess I can handle that because before that, before the rain and the tears and the blood, that's when we're together.  
  
_and I have the sense to recognize  
but I don't know how to let you go_  
  
Maybe tonight, it will be different anyway. Maybe tonight, it will be some memory pushed into the far reaches of my mind that I can't remember now but that my sub-conscious is more than willing to uncover. Maybe tonight, we can be together and we'll just be and we'll never have to be apart ever again because I will never wake up and we'll just be. Maybe tonight. I have to hope because otherwise I won't sleep. So maybe tonight I will.  
  
_I don't know how to let you go_  
  
Good night, Zack.  
  
_I don't know how to let you go.._


End file.
